Just a moment...

By the fourteenth century, Europe had reached broad economic and technological parity with China and the Islamic Near East. Between AD 1000 and c.1350 there was a long phase of economic growth. The population increased. Waste lands were colonized. Technical improvements like the mould-board plough (which opened up heavier lands) and the watermill i

Ming rule represented a vehement reaction against what was seen by its original supporters as the corruption, oppression and overtaxation of the Mongol Yuan.